They lose money from lack of future income. Somebody getting a copy of something for free is far less likely to pay for it in the future. For example, my brother use to buy movies all the time. Then he got a plex server and started pirating them. Guess how many movies he has purchased since? 0. Those companies have lost his money in their revenue streams because he just pirates everything now. He went from probably spending a couple thousand bucks a year to spending nothing. Piracy obviously has an affect on companies bottom lines, no matter how you want to rationalize it to yourself.

Your "brother"... riiiiight.

You should know me better than that. I don’t pirate anything. I actually won’t even watch movies at my parents house (my brother lives in their basement) because he has them on his plex too. I use vudu. I’m not a rule breaker.